Were the Solo: A Star Wars Story posters ripped off?

With the month of May already fast approaching, the hype for the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story is reaching its fever pitch in so many ways. It’s still a mixed bag for the Han Solo prequel, because of the negative publicity it received from changing directors and extensive reshoots.

After the first trailer dropped during Superbowl, a new batch of posters featuring the movie’s characters were also released. However, it seems that the posters itself are getting a different kind of attention.

In a post made on Friday, March 2, Hachim Bahous publicly claimed that the designs for the Solo posters were ripped off from a set of album arts he was commissioned to design without his consent. The albums mentioned were compilation CDs called the Legacy Compilations released in 2015 under Sony Music France. Although Bahous was flattered at the use of his design as inspiration for the movie posters, he wishes to be credited and paid fairly for its use. In the post, Bahous included an image comparing the posters and the album arts. Suffice to say, the resemblance is uncanny.

The Han Solo posters were also commissioned by a third-party company called BLT Communications. BLT was primarily responsible for a few more Disney/Marvel official art and posters under its portfolio prior to Solo, but none coming from Sony to somehow justify a legitimate connection between the two companies. Whether BLT knew about the Legacy Compilations or not is still subject for debate. BLT can claim that the covers were inspired from the said compilations, but the lack of credit for the original artist throws the notion out of the window. This claim by Bahous can be grounds for a legal dispute between Disney and Sony.

We’ll just have to wait how this story develops further. Unfortunately for Solo, it’s already way too deep in hot water. And this just adds another blow to its already-bruised reputation. Let’s hope this gets resolved sooner.